Saints leaving town, but will they be back?

Marlene Minnis of Santa Barbara exclaimed "This is so gonna go on Facebook" as she takes a picture with New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees after the team finished practice and wrapped up their training camp in Oxnard Friday. Minnis, who is originally from New Orleans said that when she was 11 her father took her to the first ever Saints game, when they played the then L.A. Rams.

The New Orleans Saints will finish the Oxnard portion of their 2011 training camp this morning with a brief walk-through before heading to Oakland for Sunday night's preseason contest with the Raiders.

According to most players and coaches, the stay in Oxnard, with the cool temperatures and real grass fields, provided a near-perfect environment to help them get ready for the regular season.

While head coach Sean Payton and his staff have gotten a lot of answers to questions they had about their team during the last week, the one question everyone is still asking is whether the Saints will be back in the future.

Michael Henderson, the general services manager for the city of Oxnard, said no one with the city has talked "officially" to the Saints about coming back.

He did say during the initial conversations that led to the Saints coming to Oxnard for the week, the team mentioned the possibility of a return.

"Coach Payton did tell me it was his goal to have some of their training camp here in Oxnard in the future," Henderson confirmed on Friday as he watched the Saints go through their final full practice.

Payton has not publicly told anyone he wants the team to come back, but he's been full of praise this week about the facilities, the city and the fans that have been at practice.

"It has been what I had hoped it would be," Payton said. "It had been a while since I was here in 2004, 2005 with the Cowboys (as an assistant coach), but the facilities are very good, and logistically the players are not having to travel a lot.

"They have done a lot of camps. It's well-run. You see that with the food, the meeting rooms. It's been real good."

Does Payton want to return?

"It's been talked about a lot," Payton said. "I still think there is a base tie for us in New Orleans, and yet we've always tried to be logistically smart. We've had weeks in Indianapolis. We had a week in Houston when we practiced with the Texans. A lot of it would be dependent on which preseason schedule and who we are playing out West.

"(This) experience has given the organization a chance to see some of the benefits. In a perfect world you'd love to have that time in New Orleans, in the heat, that I think is important, and then have an option like this that can get you out of it."

And then there are the Cowboys, who have traveled six times to Oxnard to hold at least part of their training camp.

The Cowboys' contract to hold their training camp in San Antonio ends this year and Dallas owner Jerry Jones has openly talked about how much he enjoys bringing his team out to Oxnard for at least part of camp.

Henderson said he had not had any conversations with Dallas about holding camp in Oxnard in 2012.

But Oxnard mayor Tom Holden, who attended practice on Wednesday, said he expects to talk with the Cowboys at some point in the next few weeks.

"Last year we talked to Jerry Jones and he said he was definitely interested in coming back," Holden said. "Things have changed with the ownership of the fields (the city now owns them) so we are open to talking to anyone. We are very interested in a long-term relationship. Obviously we have never thought about two teams, but we love the opportunity to sit down and talk and see what might happen."

Henderson even suggested that both the Cowboys and the Saints could spend part of their training camps in Oxnard at different times.

The Cowboys have a long history with Ventura County dating back to their days of holding training camps at Cal Lutheran. That history and the team's enormous amount of success have cultivated many Cowboys fans in the area.

While this week's crowds for the Saints have not been as large as the ones the Cowboys generally draw, they have been very solid, with an average of around 2,000 fans each day.

"I think it's been awesome," Saints quarterback Drew Brees said. "The reception we have received from the fans here, whether they are from New Orleans and are living here now or those just visiting, and the locals, it's been great."

As far their preparations, Brees said the team has accomplished a lot.

"The fact we have been able to lengthen practices and get a lot more work in (has been good)," Brees said. "We have kind of been saving some things until we get here knowing that we would have the time to do it.

"We've been focusing on a lot of the details, getting down some of the elements of the offense and defense that we have not had a chance to focus on in the first two weeks."

Following Friday's final full practice, nearly all the players went over to the stands and signed autographs, with grateful fans pleading for them to come back.

Payton said he was not surprised by the strong turnout.

"This is a real closeknit community," Payton said. "There are over 50 volunteers who have given their time to make this happen. You have passionate NFL fans here, so this is what I expected."